I left home about 9 o’clock and immediately broke a golden rule of mine of being prepared and ready to go. Instead I had put off getting gas so I had to stop on the way out. I had a massive load of the redwood slats; half inch by 5”. Some of them were 16 feet long so I had the Yakima rack over the cab and Bill’s rack over the bed. I bought the approximately 1000 linear feet of slats from a guy in El Dorado Hills for $20. He was moving so really didn’t care about the value; he was just happy to get rid of them.

He was a super nice guy and let me leave the load at his place for a month before I was ready to head up the Hill. There was a lot of material so I didn’t want to load and unload and reload and unload. I gave him an extra $20 and 2 bottles of our wine even though he didn’t drink. Kristen and Brett helped me load the slats at his house which was extra difficult because of the insanely steep driveway he had. We got it all up top and I was anxious to get back up to flat ground so I could tie it down.

Unfortunately, we lost half the top load when I tried to drive up the steep incline, so we gathered it all up and got it back in place, then we loosely tied it down to get up the drive. We tied it down real good before heading to HBO’s for the day. Once home, I realized I didn’t have much room for all the other crap I wanted to haul up there, so I restacked the slats in the bed all to one side and made room for three more plastic Christmas trees to add to the plastic Christmas tree forest, and then all the stuff I needed for the first trip up the hill of the year like the stove and propane and the water heater, kitchen stuff, clothes, bedding and all of puppies gear.

With him, I have to leave the whole backseat empty so he’s got room to lie down and get comfortable. He hasn’t been a very good traveler because he throws up a lot in the car, and he has pooped a couple times, but we think he’s doing better now that we folded the seats down flat so he’s up higher and can look out the window. I made a little spot for him between the seats so he could put his paws up near me and he rested his head on my arm and my shoulder and looked straight out the windshield with the air vents blowing on him so he had a pretty good ride.

There were hardly any cars or even big rigs on the road on the way up, which made for a very pleasant drive.  I don’t know where everybody was or if it’s just the time of the year, but the lack of big rigs was very surprising and allowed us to just keep pooping on up I-80 without any slowdowns or traffic or merging or one super slow, big rig being passed by another very slow big rig and backing up traffic forever.  We made really good time despite just kind of plowing along with such a big load. I was in no hurry with those big long slats up top on the rack, so I decided to take highway 89 out of Truckee to get off the freeway and enjoy more mellow and relaxed drive.

I think we stopped three times on the way up to give puppy a break. We stopped in the snow on the pass opposite Nordon ski resort and he got to play in his first snow. There was a lot of it piled up alongside the road and so he got to play and jump and eat and bite it . We had a nice little break until a guy came walking down a snowy road out of nowhere with his dog and he stopped and waited a fair distance away from us. He had his dog sit and obviously didn’t want to come down near us which I thought was a little strange, but we had already had a pretty good stop so we packed up and got on our way so he could also get on his way.

We stopped again outside of Loyalton just for a quick pee break and stretch of the legs, and then we had a nice stop at the rest stop outside of Susanville. That’s the first time I’ve stopped there and they had a very interesting Cal Trans display on their water treatment process. It was a good place to walk around with puppy as nobody was over there checking it out. He got to run around and leave a big poop by their display before we made the last pit stop for gas in Litchfield.

I let puppy out of the truck at the lower gate and let him run up the road. There was tons of water out in the plains and standing water everywhere below the elevated road level. The road was a little soft but not muddy or the least bit slippery. I just went slow and let puppy run alongside me up to the cemetery. I stopped there and walked around to check out the trees and I think maybe five are still alive, maybe six if we’re lucky so now we’re down to about a 50% survival rate which isn’t great, but hopefully those last guys will make it.  I stopped and looked at the holes that Kelly had dug for me last year and definitely there was some erosion and filling in, but I’m excited to bring up the cacti and get them planted, hoping against hope that some of them will survive also.

I put the truck in 4-wheel drive for the last leg up the hill as puppy followed me on up to the upper gate.  The road looked great; there was very little erosion and the red rock was really a beautiful little trail through the green of the sage and juniper. The rock all looked great stayed in place over the winter and I was super happy to see what a big difference it made.  Puppy followed me on up the last leg to our little town and he was really excited to smell everything and look around and check things out for the very first time. I unloaded and called Kristen and looked around myself as this was the first trip of the year and much needed to be investigated.

Everything looked really good. There was a little bit of erosion on the loop road that made a little channel and filled up the very first water bar on the main road with mud, but nothing went over the water bar and on down the road so it definitely did its job.   I didn’t see any damage to the cabins or the water tanks; all the windows looked to be fine. The new cabin looked to be fine so it looks like everything survived the winter really well.  Every water tank was full with the exception of the new 1500 gallon tank that we got from Kelly.  It had blown from the platform that we made for it around to the leeward side of the big tank to get out of the wind with the overflow hose from the big tank acting as a tether, it swung around in the wind as far as it could until it was literally out of the wind and settled there. It still did its job by filling up about 2/3 full of water that was overflow from the 3500 gallon tank. That gives us about 6,000 gallons of water for the year with another 100 gallon tank coming on line this summer.

Unloading the truck was a grind as I was pretty tired and it was already 3:30 getting on to four o’clock and all I really wanted to do was go up onto the cocktail lounge and celebrate being up here.  Unfortunately, the new cabin was full of chairs and the refrigerator top, the kitchen counter and the sink were filthy dirty and a lot of cleaning needed to happen before I could set up the kitchen. I moved the BBQ out of the way and got to emptying the truck and laying out my bedding and organizing my cabin for the night.  By then I was too tired to cook and so I just ate a couple of the sandwiches that Kristen got for me, fed puppy and opened up my bottle of Storelli/Hart Mourvedre/Petite Sirah and enjoyed a couple glasses up on top of the lounge.

The sunset was beautiful, especially over the lake out in Dry Valley that certainly adds a very cool element up here when it’s present.  I was trying to listen to music, which was nice but puppy was hearing and smelling so many things he was tripping on all sorts of stuff so I just wanted to watch him do his thing and didn’t want to interfere with what he could hear or what he could hear that I might be able to also hear. He was very very active so I turned the music off and just kind of paid attention to him, which was very cool. We heard many birds, coyotes, the flapping of tarps from the tree planting wind break and I’m sure he heard and smelled many other things as he was constantly up and down and going around the rocks and up and over and back, which was really fun to see.

Eventually, he settled down and we watched the stars come out, which was very interesting because the Big Dipper, really the only constellation I know and that I pay attention to, was upside down with the handle straight down, which is very different from the near horizontal position I usually notice it in. I guess it’s the time of the year, so that was very cool to see. Then we kind of made out the little dipper and the North Star, which was way to the West of the Big Dipper, which was on the other side than it usually is in the Summer and the Fall when I remembered it last. So all that star gazing and observation was kind of interesting and tiring

Puppy was very active in the cabin hearing and smelling all sorts of things. He never settled down all night. He was walking around, back-and-forth and flopping down and every time we went out for a pee break, he would listen and look and listen and look, and then he’d wanna jump up on top of the bed when we came back in. That went on for most of the night until we saw the little crescent, orange/yellow moon to the East just above the horizon, which was a very cool sight. After that last trip to the loo, he finally flopped onto his bed and slept, and that allowed me to do the same.

I got up about seven and it was really a comfortable calm cool morning. I would say warm but it wasn’t quite warm yet, however I was in my shorts, a T-shirt and a long sleeve shirt and felt just fine. I got my coffee going, fed puppy and sat up on the cocktail lounge and had a real nice cup of coffee to get the juices going. Soon it was time to get ready for Braiden to help me unload the redwood slats out of the truck.  I had asked Kelly if his boys could help me because I expected to bring up the bed, cabinet and the sofa for the new cabin but since I picked up all those redwood slats, I didn’t have room for anything else in the truck.

I still had Braiden come to give me a hand and that really did help.  We knocked it out in about half an hour and I gave him 40 bucks and he seemed happy with that so that was a big plus to be done unloading all that material and stacking it in a neat pile by 9:30.  I asked him about Wolf sightings and he said they hadn’t seen any, but certainly had heard about some predation up around Ash Valley and likely Jess Valley, but they had never seen any. I took several pictures of new tracks in the road that sure look like wolf tracks to me. Braden and I saw some scat on the road that I thought might be, but he didn’t think it was big enough and it probably wasn’t so I’m still looking for and hoping to find some more definitive evidence that that the Wolves have been up here snooping around and checking things out which would be very very cool for us.

After Braden left, we got busy shoveling the red lava rock in the area between Mike’s trailer and the new cabin and my cabin. The guy that brought it up for us was really good and did the best he could with the limited space, but he just didn’t have enough room to operate and spread it out. The result was some very thick pours and a couple big piles that needed to be distributed in the corners and then just generally spread. I got about halfway done with that chore when it became time for lunch and a long break. It was another beautiful day with temperatures probably in the upper 60s, real light gentle breeze. The sun felt great and so we took a nice long break and warmed in the glorious sun.

I split the last of the two sandwiches that Kristen bought for me with puppy for lunch and he seemed to enjoy them. I washed mine down with a real cold beverage and felt like one more ibuprofen would get me through the rest of the day. Mike called from the birthday lunch with Dennis and Steve and that was super cool to talk to each one of them for a minute. I couldn’t help but to put another plug in to hopefully get them up here this year when it’s nice and warm. It is doubtful, but I remain hopeful.

I couldn’t help but start moving some rocks along the trail to the deck where Diego and his guys had wrecked the rock wall when they were building the new cabin, so I beefed up the wall and tossed a few rocks under the foundation and made that a little bit cleaner, then I went back to shoveling a little more of the cinders out between the cabin and the trailer. I was determined to make up for a far too abbreviated cocktail hour last night so I was very conscious of the time as I was determined to call it quits right around 3 o’clock. I was plenty tired by then and ready to stop working but I fucked around a little more with the rocks on the trail and cleaned up some garbage from the winter winds before I finally deposited myself on the deck and cooled my doggies.

I pulled out the hamburger and the chicken and the sausage and the two giant zucchinis that Kristen got for me and let them get up to room temperature. The chicken was still partially frozen so I’m glad I got it out when I did.  I poured myself a delicious bourbon cocktail with a splash of Vermouth and Coke and some bitters and that got me in the proper state of mind rather quickly. Rested and watered, I couldn’t resist taking a shower so I had to swap out the propane hose under the counter because I didn’t have the dual valve which feeds both the stove and the hot water, but it was oh so worth it. A sweet hot shower sure felt great. I had another cocktail and got the fire going, turned on some tunes and had a great great night. It was so fun to have knocked off early; I had no sense of needing to rush or cutting things short or doing things fast because I had plenty of time and that really made for a great evening

The barbecue was delicious. Puppy had a cheeseburger, a chicken thigh and a sausage after his dinner and we sat up on top of the cocktail lounge and watched a beautiful sunset which was remarkable with the lake out in Dry Valley reflecting all the color from the sky. It was really a special treat to look out beyond Bob’s cabin and see a big lake behind it; it totally reminded me of the scenes in the movie Pale Rider.

I got listening to some Marshall Tucker which brought back a lot of memories from SI baseball and so I texted John Grealish to see if he could remember who introduced us to that music. We swapped a couple texts and had some laughs and then he called and we talked for a minute about old times and had more laughs. It was great to talk to him. I sent him a few pictures of the property and the sunset over Dry Valley lake.

After I talked to John, I was texting with Mike Leaon about the GO road (a proposed road between Gasque and Orleans) up in Humboldt or maybe Siskiyou County. It was a very contentious proposed project when I was up in Humboldt in the late 1970’s.  I don’t think it ever got built and I don’t know how Mike heard about it but he was proposing a fishing trip to find Bigfoot. I suggested that was a terrible idea because he just might find Bigfoot and come back with two less arms than he went up there with it. It is really beautiful country and certainly worth exploring, but I would not be putting out any Bigfoot bait.

After the Marshall Tucker music, I put on some Elton John and boy that was fantastic. I came down from the lounge before it got too dark. Stars had come out and it was a beautiful night. I wanted to have a fire so we gathered as much wood as we could and got a little burner going. The higher rock wall on the West side of the fire corral really cuts down on the breeze so what little breeze there was was just about eliminated sitting inside the corral and below the wall. We had a really nice fire as puppy would wander away into the dark to explore something or smell something or listen here and there and then come back and join me around the fire. Eventually he settled down at my feet and we just sat in the glow together. That was really sweet.

I poured my last cocktail, listened to a little more music, saw quite a few more stars and a few satellites and then headed off to bed. I just about fell asleep listening to Elton John and then said good night to Kristen and had a real good night sleep. Puppy was much more relaxed the second night which was great. I woke up this morning with a little bit of a cloudy head and a little bit sore but puppy and I both slept well. It was perfectly calm and maybe high 40’s or 50’s by the time I got up and got dressed. The sun was warm and I just needed shorts and a T-shirt to get my coffee going  I grab my sweatshirt and gloves to sit up at the cocktail lounge and have my 1st cup of coffee as it was catching a bit more of the breeze up there.

While I was sitting there, I was staring at the big flat rocks you have to walk across to get to the chairs on the lounge. They need a lot of work to make the path more level and easier to traverse. My feet have been hurting quite a bit so I’ve been doing some trail work to make things flatter and smoother and eliminate some of the pointy sharp rocks that are sticking up out of the ground. We need to eliminate some tripping hazards and just make it easier to get around up here. Moving those big rocks will have to wait for another time, but I did start working on the path out to the Upper Terrace and working to make the rocks alongside the path look more natural and kind of fit in with the natural formation a little bit better instead of just having rocks piled up. I did some good work on the rock formation by the cocktail lounge and then the rocks that line the path out to the Upper Terrace. All that looks really good now, the path is a lot more stable and secure, and the rock on either side of the paths fit in with the natural outcropping much better.

I came back down to the kitchen for my 2nd cup of coffee and swept the rest of the deck that was covered in juniper berries and leaflets. The puppy was barking for about 10 minutes at something over by the Yellowstone. He just kept looking and barking and woofing. I couldn’t see what it was, but I’ve gotten more used to him barking up here as at first, it used to kinda alarm me as it does at the house of something or somebody I should probably pay attention to. Up here though, I have already learned it’s probably a lizard or a mouse or a rabbit maybe, or a birdie. But it’s been cool to try to see or at least look off in the direction he’s looking to see if I can see what he is seeing/hearing.

I finished up my coffee and get to shoveling the last of the red cinder out between Mike‘s trailer and the cabin and leveled that all out so it’s a smooth ride coming up next time. There is 1 hump left that needs to be spread but that can wait for next time. I wandered over to the Yellowstone and went inside both the Leo and the Mario. Both were real clean and weather tight, I opened the roof vents to get some air circulating and then locked them back up. Finally it was time for the last most worst job of the trip and I couldn’t put it off any longer.

Mike had set out some traps and an electrocution box for the mousies in his trailer and I could see that the traps had been successful. I had to bust the drawers out as I couldn’t find the magic angle for them to release easily, but I dumped the bodies and the boxes outside and then left the drawers up on the roof. I was gloved and masked up, but I still didn’t want to clean up under the drawers or mop the bathroom floor. I guess now, looking back, I could have sprayed the heck out of the place with Lysol at least.
Anyway, with that done, it was time to pack up and get on the road. Puppy and I shared some chicken and sausage before we hit the road. I was so happy to have remembered to turn on Mike’s trail camera that had been off all Winter, but when I got to it, the battery looked like it had gotten wet and dissolved, expanding and opening up the door, exposing it to even more weather. It was kaput! I was bummed because that camera is by far our best chance at definitive evidence we have wolves. Oh well, we will try again.

I took South Grasshopper to see if I could get a better feel for the water in Dry Valley which I couldn’t, but the water in Grasshopper Valley was even more remarkable. The valley was a massive lake. The road was a bit sketchy in places, but it was fun to drive low and slow and take it all in. We took Highway 32 home which is the first time I have seen it since the fire. It wasn’t as devastating as I had imagined. We didn’t see signs until we were beyond Forest Ranch and then it got really sad. I also took Highway 99 home for a change and that was a nice departure from going Highway 70 most of the time. It was a longer drive home, but worth it for some new scenery.